Practical Aspects of Wood Quality for Architects and Engineers

Course Overview

Born out of years of research and real world experience Les Jezsa applies his unique perspective in exploring the wood quality attributes of: strength, stiffness, density, dimensional stability and natural durability.

Many of the examples and teaching tools developed by Les Jozsa and used in this course are also used in university architect and engineering programs around the world. 

Learning Objectives

  1. Wood availability and wood use will span from the global scale to the local picture, from the temperate zone and tropical rainforest, in terms of industrial and non-industrial uses.
  2. Old-growth and second-growth wood attributes will be illuminated in terms of density, strength and stiffness, dimensional stability, and natural durability.
  3. Hardwoods- softwoods, lumber grades, wood-moisture relationships, and protecting wood through pressure treating and painting.

Course Video

Speaker Bio

Les Jozsa
Research Scientist Emeritus
FPInnovations | Forintek

Les Jozsa’s expertise and knowledge, as a wood technologist, spans a wide perspective, from the macroscopic to the microscopic realm. The above graphic, designed and drawn by the author, could be his business card. His responsibilities included planning, coordinating and conducting research on wood quality attributes, utilizing X-ray densitometric techniques. His resource evaluation projects have dealt with all the major commercial tree species in western Canada, and involved stand selection, tree sampling, laboratory measurements, analysis, and reporting. Log diagramming, lumber conversion, and lumber grading protocols were followed to examine the impact of silvicultural treatments (like spacing, thinning, fertilization and pruning) on wood production and wood quality. Intensive tree sampling techniques provided information on stem size, stem taper, branch size, heartwood-sapwood distribution, and juvenile- mature-wood classification. His three-dimensional analysis of ring width, ring density, fiber length and shrinkage was ground-breaking in Canada. It was made possible through techniques developed by his colleagues at Forintek under his leadership. His other projects have dealt with climate-tree-growth relationships, the acoustical properties of wood, shrinkage and swelling, and lumber drying. Other responsibilities included conducting workshops with professional foresters, wood workers, architects and engineers. He developed an extensive variety of teaching aids which are being used around the world at several universities, dealing with wood technology and wood-structure. He is an expert witness in Forensic Dendrochronology in the Supreme Court of Canada.

Course Curriculum

Lessons